1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to printing of large format printouts (poster printing), and in particular, it relates to poster printing using small printers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Poster printing refers to large format printing where the printouts have sizes many times larger than a letter or A4 sized sheet. For example, a poster may be 36 inches by 24 inches in size. In addition, high quality printouts are desired for poster printing. Conventionally, posters are printed on large format papers and require sophisticated, large printers to print. Small printers, i.e., printers typically used in homes or business offices, are typically limited to letter, legal, A4 and A3 sizes papers and cannot handle larger sized papers. To enable printing of a large format poster using a small printer in an inexpensive manner, some printer drivers or application software provide a poster printing function, which divides the large poster image into smaller image sections, typically rectangular in shape, as shown in FIG. 1. In the example shown in FIG. 1, a 36 inch by 24 inch poster is divided into 3 by 3 image sections to be printed. The image sections are printed separately on individual sheets of paper, and assembled together by the user to form a large format poster.